Unease
by lonelywaldorf
Summary: Finally committed to adding another story to my collection! Having finally reunited with each other, the group considers their choices-settle in Alexandria or Elysium. But before committing, they must unroot the dark secrets that fester in each community? Will it be a case of choosing the best, or the least dangerous place to live.
1. Unease

**OK so if you are totally new to what I write, you want to go HERE first, else this makes no sense:**

s/7037826/1/Walking-Dead-These-bonds-that-link-us

 **This is the sixth story I've done on Walking Dead. I've only watched season one and kind of stick more to the comic storyline with some characters thrown in. Obviously I don't own anything to do with Walking Dead.**

 **Matthew**

"You should go get a shower."

Matthew half opened his eyes to locate the voice. He didn't want them to know he was awake, least they felt the need to conceal anything from him. It was a waste. He couldn't really see anything of interest. He felt, rather than knew that Daryl sat next to his bed-he could feel his hand on his. He also knew that Georgie was half sat, half slumped in the seat on his right, and to the right of her, Adele was lying in bed, under observation for a concussion. He was pretty sure that he'd been in the room for about two days now, but he couldn't be 100% certain. He didn't know where they were, nor did he really know who the people who ran the place were-apart from Jack and Danny. He liked Danny, an upbeat Londoner, with a bizarre version of British English that made Daryl and Adele squint in confusion. He did have a sneaking suspicion that Danny did make some of it up, to entertain and distract him.

This, however, wasn't Danny. It was a British accent, but it was female. Older, and clipped. The sort of voice that made Matthew instinctively want to stand up straight and do whatever the owner of the voice said. The voice wasn't outright threatening, but there was a definite sense that bad things could happen to people who disobeyed it He felt Daryls hand tighten ever, ever so slightly around his.

"I'm fine." There was a pause, then Daryl added as an afterthought. "Ma'am".

"Iris is fine thank you Mr Dixon," the voice replied in a tone that suggested that it was not. "And you are not fine, the pair of you are beginning to smell most unpleasant. I would suggest you go across to Sayids accommodation, where your friend T-Dog is staying-and incidentally where you would be too- take a quick shower, have some coffee and then come back. It wouldn't take a reasonable person more than 20 minutes. I'm sure you could manage it in 10. I will stay here and talk to Matthew, once his eyes are fully rather than half open."

Matthews eyes shot open and he stared up guiltily. Starting back at him, he saw Daryl and the voice. The voice belonged to an old woman, with short hair and eerie piercing eyes that were almost purple in colour. She stood very straight, both hands resting on a cane in front of her-more for show than for function and everything about her screamed power.

Matthew wished he'd kept his eyes tightly shut.

"Now." The voice-Iris-placed one hand firmly on Daryls shoulder. "We will see you in 10 minutes." She manoeuvred him out of his seat, in a way Matthew had seen old ladies manoeuvred people out of seats on buses, a mix of determination and a presumption that they would not be refused. Daryl was on his feet before he was really aware of what was happening. Somewhat dazed, he made his way to the door, leaving Matthew alone with Iris.

"Now then, Matthew. You and I need to have a chat. And by that I mean I will ask questions and you will answer honestly and fully. Would you care to take a drink before we start."

Obediently, Matthew sat up and reached over for the tumbler of water on the cabinet next to his bed. He briefly considered poking Georgie to wake her up, but didn't feel able to. Iris hadn't said he could. He put the glass to his mouth, and was surprised by how calmly he was able to sip the water down. He sensed some sort of trap, but he didn't know what it was, or how he was supposed to side step it. He tried to think of all the things that Iris might want to know. Who was in charge of their group maybe? Who would want to take over? Suddenly, he knew it. Jacci. Georgie and Jacci had had a fight, and now Jacci was dead, so now she wanted to know Georgies role. Well that was easy. It wasn't Georgies fault at all, it was Jacci. She'd threatened him and attacked Georgie. So that was all he had to say. She couldn't trick him there, because it was the truth. Settling the tumbler back on the cabinet, he turned to face Iris, feeling some sort of calmness.

"Is Mr Dixon your father?" The question stunned him. He looked at the old woman blankly. "What I mean is, do you consider him as a father figure. He is quite clearly not your biological father."

"I…" Matthew tried to make sense of the question.

"Please don't stall Matthew, answer the question."

"Yeah. He's like a dad I guess."

"I see." Iris nodded slowly. She glanced around the room, her eyes briefly resting on Georgie. "He and Georgina are in a relationship are, they not? Quickly please."

"Yeah, they are." Did he imagine the slight frown?

"Does this mean you consider Georgina as a mother figure?"

Matthew felt a swell of embarrassment at the question. It was logical that he should he supposed, but it wasn't like they had lived together in a house like a family. He would happily go to Georgie for advice, but call her mum? He muttered a jumble of words that made no sense even to himself.

"Speak up." Iris didn't sound impatient or angry. She simply wanted an answer.

"I don't know." He hoped Georgie wasn't awake to hear this. "I don't call her mum or anything."

"I didn't ask what you called her, I asked if you considered her a mother figure."

"Yeah. I do I think."

"You think?"

"Fine. She is." Matthew would have shouted, but there was something about Iris that made him think that it would be one of the worst ideas he'd had in a while. He stared at her cane and suddenly was struck with the notion that it actually concealed a sword that she would slice his head off with if he displeased her. Iris nodded again. There was a heavy pause, as she digested this information. Suddenly she spoke again.

"You have siblings? Within this family unit you have created for yourself?"

"Harry. He's my little brother. And Sophia kind of adopted Georgie as her mum."

"I see." Again that nod, that pause. "One more question. Why were you alone in that city?"

Was that the real question she had wanted to know? Suddenly tired and confused, Matthew just wanted Iris to leave and Daryl to come back, or Georgie and Adele to wake up.

"They thought I killed someone. The people who run the other town."

"Could you kill someone? A living person. Are you capable of that?"

Matthew sank down into his bed. "Yeah. I could do that."

"I see." Before Iris could say anymore, Georgie stirred and started to sit up, rubbing her eyes.

"Iris!" Georgie started to stand, pulling at her hair and clothes. "What are you doing here, was I supposed to come back? I thought we'd talked about everything you wanted…"

"Don't worry yourself Georgina. I was just leaving." Iris stood, waving Georgies words aside as if they were no more than flies. "I just wanted to have a chat with Matthew. He's been very cooperative." A confused look crossed Georgies face, and she slowly sat back into the chair. Both she and Matthew watched in silence as Iris almost marched out of the room without another word spoken to either of them. As soon as she was out, Georgie turned to Matthew.

"What did she want to know?" Matthew shook his head.

"Weird things. If Daryl was my dad, if I had brothers and sisters and…" He stopped as it hit him.

"And what?"

"She said "Could you". "Not did you." She asked why I was on my own in the city and I told her that people thought I had murdered someone. And she didn't ask me if I did kill someone, she asked me if I could kill someone." Matthew head started to pound. "Georgie, why would you ask someone that?"


	2. Ice

p class="MsoNormal"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"T-Dog/span/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"T-Dog stretched himself out on the sofa and sighed in contentment. He had just had, for the second day in a row, the hottest, longest, most powerful shower he'd had since the night before his evacuation from his home in Atlanta. Hell, it might even have been better than that one. Now he was in clean clothes, his whole body relaxed and soothed by the heat of the water. He could feel himself falling asleep, a foolish thing to do considering he was surrounded by potential enemies, but he couldn't care less. In fact, he sleepily reasoned with himself, they couldn't be enemies, because they were Georgies friends. So they had to be his friends. Surely. Maybe. He yawned and turned his body to look at the style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanHe'd felt guilty about the shower the first day, asking how long he should take so that he didn't use up all the power. The residents in turn had looked at him blankly, until the black one legged man explained that the solar panels kept the power supply topped up just as well as regular electricity and gas had and that there was no limit. That had been a good day. If he could get Miao here, if he could get Rick to move the whole group here. He closed his eyes, half dozing, half turning over semi formulated arguments and reasonings in his style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"BANGbr style="mso-special-character: line-break;" / !- [if !supportLineBreakNewLine]-br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" / !-[endif]-/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"T-Dog fell off the sofa and stumbled to his feet, grabbing for a gun that wasn't there at his hip. He recovered his composure and cleared the fog from his head in time to see Daryl storm into the living room where he had been relaxing, and start to pace in front of him. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Man, I was asleep. What's the problem?" T-Dog threw himself back on the sofa, covering his face with his hands. That had promised to be a really good nap. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Some British bitch threw me out the hospital. Sent me ta have a shower." Daryl stared at T-Dog as if inviting him to share in the outrage at this unreasonable request. T-Dog stared back at him. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';""And this made you angry because you need your protective layer of filth?" Daryls scowl got even more impressive. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';""That woman…she's not right. I tell ya now, she's…she's…a bitch! An she's interogatin' Matthew. That's why she sent me away. Nothin' wrong with me. A shower. Bitch." As Daryl descended into angry muttering, and T-Dog wondered if Daryl had lost the ability to smell himself. Sayid and Craig entered the room. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Is everything ok?" Sayid wore a look of concern, Craig, having more experience with Daryl, wore a look that suggested he knew where the exits were and was ready to run. Daryl spun on his heels and repeated his grievance to Sayid. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Old British Bitch sent me to have a shower!" Sayids face cleared. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Ah. You met Iris. She's…yes. Quite an intimidating woman. Well, the shower is up there, and if she suggested you have one, I would advise you do so." He moved to the side as Daryl stomped upstairs, muttering all the while. "You can find some clean clothes in the wardrobe. I think it's a free for all deal here." He turned to T-Dog. "Have you met Iris yet?" T-Dog shook his head. "I wouldn't rush to. She's the oldest of the five leaders here, but…she's the most frightening. And she's in control. Remember that. She's in charge." T-Dog nodded, feeling a unpleasant knotting feeling in his stomach. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';""What do you mean by that, exactly?" Sayid frowned T-Dog sat patiently and watched him. He didn't know the man, but he had kept Georgie alive and she trusted him. He had an open face and, most importantly, he had only been here as long as Georgie. He didn't have the same level of loyalty to the settlement as maybe other people did, so he would see things far more objectively. He didn't think that he'd lie to him. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';""I don't know. I just get the feeling that she's not necessarily…bad, but she's not good either. And she pulls the strings. I see her as more of a lawful neutral. She'd happily sacrifice ten good people for the good of eleven more. Take the quickest option and cut down anyone who would oppose her."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';""You seen her do that?" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"Sayid raised an eyebrow. "Did she seem outraged about Georgie, a relative outsider, shooting down Jackie? And the fact that everyone else just fell in line with it? What does that tell you?"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Plenty." As Sayid walked outside, T-Dog felt the knotting sensation in his stomach turn to ice. /span/p 


End file.
